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Big Coal Scores on Wyoming’s Public Lands

“Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken,
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.“
–John Prine “Paradise”

Paging Tim DeChristopher.

Today the Dept. of Interior announced
that they’d be making coal-rich tracts of lands available to the mining
industry in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. Leasing bids worth somewhere
between $13.4 billion and $21.3 billion and producing 758 million tons
of coal.

Citing political unrest in the Middle East Interior, Secretary Ken
Salazar said “we ought not be subjected to the ups and downs of what
happens in the Middle East or in Libya, so part of it is moving us
towards an energy-independent America,”

Why do I get the feeling that some sleazy corporate lobbyists are seizing some opportunities.

Salazar also said that nuclear energy is still part of America’s
energy future. But, Japan’s nuclear meltdown seems to be a bit of a boom
for the coal industry. Stocks are up and the future looks bright for
dirty coal after years of progress made by environmentalists.

Big coal corporations make the continued use of public lands sound
like it’s contributing to society’s progress, but really why can’t we
have leadership rise to the top who finds energy solutions not rooted in
destructive strip mining?

Wyoming is the reddest of the red states, but if anything, it’s time
for more red state organizing. We’re in a long struggle to keep coal in
the ground and fight for communities most impacted by extraction.